The Ultimate macOS Thread

Thanks for the tip, I just added dashboard to startup items and will see if that helps, if not I'll give it a shot.

Edit: With dashboard added to startup it doesn't go away even with hide checked, so I installed kickstart and it seems to work a treat.

Edit 2: On waking from sleep with kickstart, dashboard pops up then goes away. I guess you have to consider whether that is more or less annoying than the slow start-up. I didn't notice it at startup.
 
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By the way, does iTunes even check anywhere for Album Art on it's own? As in the iTunes concept you should not tinker with the music files on your own, why should iTunes look for newly-added Album Art? I fear one would have to add it through the iTunes interface.
 
And people wonder why I hate iTunes... it's a turd. :rolleyes:
 
And people wonder why I hate iTunes... it's a turd. :rolleyes:

Planning my migration away from MacOS, iTunes is one of the few things that are almost irreplaceable. If you do things the way iTunes intends you to do (as in "leave to folder structure alone"), it's brilliant.
 
I assume they don't make a linux version of itunes so it would run in wine right?

I absolutely despised itunes on windows even though I like it on mac. IDK if I would still want to use it after my probable migration.
 
Planning my migration away from MacOS, iTunes is one of the few things that are almost irreplaceable. If you do things the way iTunes intends you to do (as in "leave to folder structure alone"), it's brilliant.

I think you mean do it as in "exactly the way Apple wants you to do it"... which makes sense since iTunes is supposed to interface with iOS, a world in which you shouldn't dare stray from Steve Jobs' restrictive and locked down idea of how you are supposed to use a product you own.

Like I said before, I actually do have my folders organized the iTunes way from 6 or 7 years ago when I owned an iPod. I guess back then I just had the time to drag album art individually into iTunes, but as far as folder organization goes my music always been the iTunes way.
 
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Okay, new problem.

VLC doesn't seem to handle 720p MKV files especially well, at least not on my 13" MBP with whatever video card it shipped with. I kept thinking my video files were corrupted, since it's the type of issue you see with corrupted files - artifacts, problematic sound or jumping around a second or two at parts of the video.

Except, I know it's not my videos because when I rewind and play the same problematic part over again it often plays it fine until it hiccups again at a totally different part.

Help me FinalGear OS X community, you're my only hope!
 
What are the specs on your macbook?
 
What are the specs on your macbook?

It's the current 13" model, so whatever you find on the Apple website. :p

I've got a 2.4GHz C2D, 4GB o' RAM and the GeForce 320M GPU. Could it be VLC is not doing the necessary graphics switching and using the on-board GPU?
 
That should have the grunt. My MacMini is pretty much the same thing but with a 2.66Ghz CPU and it works fine with VLC. Are you using the latest Intel version (not the PPC one)? If so try running the "delete preferences" script in the VLC dmg then run it again.
 
Okay, new problem.

VLC doesn't seem to handle 720p MKV files especially well, at least not on my 13" MBP with whatever video card it shipped with. I kept thinking my video files were corrupted, since it's the type of issue you see with corrupted files - artifacts, problematic sound or jumping around a second or two at parts of the video.

Except, I know it's not my videos because when I rewind and play the same problematic part over again it often plays it fine until it hiccups again at a totally different part.

Help me FinalGear OS X community, you're my only hope!


Shawn, I've been having the exact same problem with VLC for a little over a month now, except it happens with just about all videos. I've tried installing different versions but it hasn't made a difference. My MacBook isn't as powerful as yours (2.0ghz C2D with 4GB of ram and whatever video card it came with) but with something as simple as a standard definition rip of Fifth Gear it shouldn't cause any problems.
 
VLC on Windows at least doesn't perform nearly as well as it used to. I just have it as a backup for strange video files now.
 
Thats why I tried to go as far back as I could with installing an old version. I think I got as far as the original 1.0.0.x version but it didn't matter.
 
Thats why I tried to go as far back as I could with installing an old version. I think I got as far as the original 1.0.0.x version but it didn't matter.

Are Mac version numbers different? VLC hit 1.0 on Windows relatively recently. I liked it better around 0.8. Hell, I used it to watch TG on a Pentium II laptop with a 366 MHz processor.
 
Are Mac version numbers different? VLC hit 1.0 on Windows relatively recently. I liked it better around 0.8. Hell, I used it to watch TG on a Pentium II laptop with a 366 MHz processor.

Actually, they're the same. I guess I didn't go as far back as I had thought. 1.0.0.x was the absolute latest I could find so I assumed that was one of the first.
 
Use Movist, it's way faster than VLC :)

Thanks. I'll try that for sure, the only reason I got VLC for Mac was because I didn't know of any better alternatives. Don't even have VLC installed on my Windows installations.


Shawn, I've been having the exact same problem with VLC for a little over a month now, except it happens with just about all videos.

Might be the same for me. I just don't watch too many standard def videos. :D

Well I do, not recently though. I watched Man Lab, and come to think of it, it hiccuped a few times but I chalked it up to a poor quality rip.


VLC on Windows at least doesn't perform nearly as well as it used to. I just have it as a backup for strange video files now.

I haven't used VLC on Windows for a few years now. The KMPlayer is my video player of choice under Windows.
 
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